Response to Tea Party letter challenging views

December 18, 2012

This letter is in response to the letter by Lisa Nancollas that appeared in The Sentinel on Wednesday Dec. 12. I would like to correct a couple of assumptions that she made therein.

Mrs. Nancollas thinks I am misinformed about the Tea Party. I am not. I did not mention the Tea Party Patriots organization in my letter. My letter did refer to the Tea Party but only because Mr. Molek praised the party in his original letter.

Mrs. Nancollas also states in her letter than I do not appreciate the seriousness of our national debt. This could not be further from the truth. I am very concerned about the deficit and debt. As a demonstration of how concerned I am, I'm even willing to outline how I feel we should go about reducing it. As I said in my original letter the first step is returning to the tax rates of the Clinton years for those that can afford it. Next, we cannot continue to spend as much on defense as the next 10 countries combined. We should cease being the world's policeman and dramatically reduce defense spending. To strengthen Social Security we should raise the cap on earnings subject to Social Security withholding. A good round starting point would be $250,000 then index that to inflation. We should means test Medicare to reduce or eliminate payments of medical expense for those with incomes (not assets) over $200,000 per year. All income should be taxed as regular income. It is ludicrous to have a 15 percent capital gains tax rate when savings accounts and CDs are paying next to nothing. To suggest that those with means will reduce their investments is folly. Finally we should establish the inheritance tax at a 33 percent rate on estate values over $1 million.

You may note that I do not agree with the Tea Party Patriots' limited government solution to the debt issue. You may call it income redistribution and big government but I believe in Social Security, Medicare, fair courts, police, good schools, good roads, adequate defense and equality of opportunity for all. That does not mean I don't appreciate the seriousness of the debt problem.

What really irked me about Mr. Molek's' letter were his references to those that supported Obama as "dependents" and "takers." His reference to raising taxes on the rich as "class warfare" also bothered me. I'd still like someone to explain to me how calling the millions of working men and women that supported Obama "takers" and "dependents" is not divisive?